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MN: Now your family is a very interesting family because really you had brothers in the army and brothers at Tule Lake and went to Japan. How satisfied are you about the efforts to educate people on what occurred at Tule Lake?

YK: Well, I think there have been a lot of books on different camps, and some of 'em, "Oh, yeah, it was kind of fun," and they had different festivals, they had dance classes and so forth and so on. And in the (camps), some people say, "Oh, yeah, it wasn't so bad." They were kids, and, "Camp was kind of fun." And Poston was, it wasn't bad. But Tule Lake, we were in a prison. So not too much has. There have been some books out on Tule Lake, but not very much, because some people don't want to talk about it and they don't want the American public to know about that there were some dissenters. And in our own community, we were considered the "troublemakers." You know, when you get out of camp, everybody always asks, "Which camp were you in?" When you say Tule Lake, "Oh, you were the troublemakers." But that used to get me mad. So anyhow, I felt that we got a raw deal. It really hurt my family. I was young enough so I could recover, but I could say that they never got the opportunity to go to college other than my one brother. But myself and my younger sister, we were able to. But the others I felt were dealt a bad hand.

MN: So do you think we still need a lot more education surrounding Tule Lake?

YK: Yeah, I think so, but I don't know if JACL and the community are up to it. They finally... they finally pardoned the Heart Mountain draft resisters, but they never forgave the Tule Lake people. And so that's always been a bone of contention to me. We were victims of circumstances. And so it'll probably end up that way. And then this Korematsu thing has brought up some things. In fact, I was the one willing to testify and Pasadena was considering it, and so I was the only internee to go there to speak before the city council. And they passed a resolution supporting the Korematsu Day. And then L.A. followed soon after. So that's good, we'll see. That's on January (30th), we'll see what happens.

MN: Okay, Yukio. I've asked all my questions. I don't know if there's anything else you want to add?

YK: Well, only that, yeah, I've had a long, interesting life. I turned eighty this year, and I'm still actively involved in Little Tokyo. In fact, I'm now involved with this film called Little Tokyo Reporter, we're trying to raise funds. And so it's been pretty (hard). I've always felt a need for challenges, so I've always gotten in there and tried to do what (I can). I always figure, well, I won't do the mundane stuff that anybody can do, I'll only do what other people either can't or won't do, so I have my own challenges. And also, I think my story, including my book, it's really one Nisei's story, but it kind of gives (the picture). It was gonna be a family history kind of thing, but when you have ten children and twenty-four grandchildren and so forth and so on, that's impossible to do a family history. So I was told to do it as a memoir, and then I wanted to get in about Bunker Hill. People wanted me to write two books and I said, "No, no, I can't even write one." [Laughs] So it came out pretty good.

MN: Can you share some of those things you brought over here? Now, this is a book on Bunker Hill. Is this what Bunker Hill looked like before?

YK: Yeah, right. And so these were the mansions. And Leo Politi, who actually did children's books, he painted all these mansions in the 1930s, so the whole book has different pictures. And there is one key one here on Angel's Flight, and this shows it about 1905, about, 'cause Angel's Flight was put in in 1901, and the Third Street Tunnel was 1903. And you can see this horse and buggy still then. That was Angel's Flight with the development that was built along the hill, just terraced down the hill. 'Cause the hill sticks up over a hundred feet. So that's what we started with.

MN: Boy, it didn't look nearly as nice. I think it was deteriorating by the 1960s.

YK: Yeah, this is how it looked in 1953, and so you can see the old buildings, and they had apartments, mostly apartments and the mansions and some hotels. But they were all wood frame and stucco, so they were all deteriorating by the time we went to tear 'em all down. Of course, some people said, "No, you should never have torn any of 'em down." But this is how it looked from City Hall in 1953. And then I don't have a current one, but on my book that's titled Reluctant Samurai: Memoirs of an Urban Planner, I do show that I went from Tule Lake to Bunker Hill as it is today. And here shows part of Bunker Hill and downtown buildings. So it went from the old historic buildings to the new downtown. And here is where I made the front page of the downtown news, 'cause I had prepared for the fiftieth anniversary of the agency a whole history of Bunker Hill. I had nine different boards showing various pictures of that era or decade or so. And I had it on large boards. And so they printed it for nine weeks, and the first week they put me on the front page. And they called me the Father of Bunker Hill. This is one other thing I was proud of, in the City of Monterey Park, because I'd worked on the library and I did a lot of other things in Monterey Park, they have a tree award for past key people in Monterey Park and present, they award them a tree in front of City Hall. So I picked a big tree just across the street from the library. But this is the plaque that's at the bottom of the tree. And this shows me and my wife riding in the car in the Nisei Week parade. So I was one of six Nisei Pioneers. So I just tell people, "I got in there because I just got too old." And my family has always been a big part of my life, my wife and my kids, so this shows my three daughters and their husbands, and the four grandchildren. Actually, at that time, there was a fifth one on the way, so there are now five grandchildren. But this just shows my family. So anyway, I just consider myself an urban planner, and that's my history.

MN: Thank you very much.

YK: Okay.

<End Segment 41> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.